The show that brought the audience to its feet every day is back.

BarcelonaWhat has happened with Soul It's one of those stories that are so epic they almost seem impossible. It's the story of a group of friends who have known each other since they were 16 years old thanks to musical theater and who dreamed of putting on a Broadway-style show of their own creation, in Catalan, and in the Sala Gran of the Teatro Nacional. It took them more than 25 years, but they succeeded: they opened last season at the TNC with a production featuring 10 musicians and 18 performers that received praise from all quarters.

When they realized they were filling the hall and the audience was on their feet every night, they decided to take a chance and transfer this production to a private theater, as if Barcelona were the West End. "It's very exciting to be able to say that Soul "It's coming back," actress Paula Malia said on Tuesday amid tears from the entire crew. After 17,300 spectators, Soul will land at the Teatre Tívoli on February 20, 2026 with a cast headed by the protagonists themselves: Paula Malia, Aina Sánchez, Diana Roig, Victor G. Casademunt, Oriol Burés and a long etcetera.

At the Tívoli, in Catalan

It will be the first Catalan-created musical that the Tívoli premieres in Catalan, beyond La Cubana. The problem, explains María José Balañá, is that there are few large-scale Catalan productions, and even fewer that dare to enter a 1,500-seat theater at their own risk. "There are leading companies in large-scale Catalan musicals that are folding [Dagoll Dagom] and, out of necessity and responsibility, we have the desire to take up this legacy," say the creators ofSoul, Oriol Burés and Víctor G. Casademunt.

To take the leap, the artistic team has created a company (Vero Vero) and has had the support of three production companies, El Terrat, Balaña en Viu and Bitò (in addition to the reimbursable aid of the ICEC), companies that have the experience and muscle to assume the risk of production, which in their own right. The team ofSoul intends to have a season in Madrid and tour throughout the State and, if we're dreaming big, "reach Broadway," says partner and executive producer Sílvia Fiestas.

Universal and in Catalan

Soul It was born with the aim of being a universal story told in Catalan. It's about an illustrator, Greta Edwards, who struggles to make her way as an animator in the American film industry of the 1930s in Hollywood. Burés assured, in her presentation at the Raima stationery store in Barcelona, ​​​​that her inspiration comes from her grandmother, who taught her to draw and showed her what animation was, but, like many women of the time, she was unable to make a career.

In the same way that Greta Edwards' path to the big studios is complicated, the path ofSoul Even success wasn't easy. It was 2021 when playwright Blanca Bardagil and musician Adrià Barbosa created the first scripts and songs, rehearsing them with friends to sell the project to production companies. No one bought it. When the Grec Festival and El Terrat held the first Musical Tournament in 2023, they were one of 400 proposals submitted, with a miniature version of their idea. And they won. One of the calls they received later was from the National Theater. At the meeting, in the fall of 2023, director Carme Portaceli gave them a direct premiere date of 2024. They had a year to create a musical from scratch, but it was already clear that no one could beat them in enthusiasm and love of art. As they say, the rest is history.